I talk books, coffee & journaling

January Reflections | 2017

January. The start of a new chapter, a new year. I cringe every time I hear someone say ‘a new year, a new you’ because, no, you are still you, I am still me, and there is nothing we can do about who we have been up until now – in fact, who we were up to this point is directly creating who we are now.

With welcoming 2017, I was cautious about setting resolutions. They scare me and they limit me. What I decided to do instead was to think of what my intentions were for this year. I am not going to share those with you because I for one am more likely to follow through with them if I keep them to myself.

It’s now February already, and I am more than aware of that, but all the same I thought I would recap what January was like for me, and what some of my favourite things about this month were. Therefore..

I spent the first 10 or so days back in my home town (Prague), meeting up with friends and family, visiting my favourite coffee shops, and enjoying my bookshelves as much as I could. There are still way too many unread books on them and it makes me very sad, so I tried to show them some love while I was around.

After flying back into Scotland, I started my second semester of Publishing Studies. And I have been loving it from day one of said semester – they really upped their game, and it makes me very happy. With this goes my first favourite – a place – and that is the university library with a view of the hills. There is not much that can beat that view.

In terms of bookish happenings and favourites, a very exciting project has been successfully funded through kickstarted, and that is Nasty Women by 404 Ink – created by two alumni from our course. It shows how much you can accomplish once you put all your heart (and sleepless nights) into something. Definitely check them out if you haven’t heard of them.

As for books that are already out there in the world, I read 3 – which seems like a very low number for someone like me (reading 142 books a year in the previous few years), though I have been having a bit of a rough time, and reading suddenly didn’t make it on my ‘how to survive’ list. I know, unheard of. The one favourite book out of those 3 was The Vegetarian by Han Kang – lyrical, magical, creepy, beautiful. Definitely deserving of winning The Man Booker International Prize in 2016.

In terms of TV, Grimm had come back at the beginning of January, and I jumped right back on it. Though, as is the case with most TV series that go on for too long, the plot suffers little by little, and it’s not really what it used to be. Other than that, I’ve been binge watching Netflix regularly.

As for things that excited me in January but didn’t make it into its own separate category just yet, I fell in love with running again, and started implementing that into my schedule which is very exciting. I also opened a tiny Etsy shop for the fun of it, and I am eager to take it to the next level in February with some exciting new products. Lastly, I have bitten the bullet and started reading for dissertation research – although there are still million and one ideas flying around in my head of what topic I want to focus on, I think it’s good to dive into the research and see what happens.

There, that’s my January. I hope you guys had a great month, and are having another great one with February. Talk soon.